April 20, 2010

What are your favorite awful band names?

The flyers were advertising a future show, featuring bands named, and I quote: Puddle, Gag School, 4-Footer and World Badness.

That might just be the best lineup of the worst-named bands in town.

Gag School? What is one smoking/drinking/thinking when one decides to name one's band Gag School? It's probably the same guy I saw a couple years ago at Seacrets in Ocean City wearing a T-shirt with the words "Suck it" and an arrow pointing down to his crotch. Stay classy, Seacrets.

The headliner is Puddle. Could it be one half of the original Puddle of Mudd? Could it be? And 4-Footer? Do I even want to know what that stands for? Hee hee.

Do you have a favorite awful band name? ...

I get plenty of emails from obscenely named bands, looking for coverage. Some examples: Nashville P****, Starf*****r, Holy F***, and the like. Obviously, I'm never going to write about them, The Sun being a family newspaper and all. That doesn't stop them from asking, though.

All the crappily named bands out there could be because all the good band names are taken, a phenomenon the Wall Street Journal wrote about a couple months ago.

What gives me license to skewer Puddle, Gag School, 4-Footer and the rest of the awfully named band gang? Back in high school, I was in a cover band called No Outlet. How lame is that? We wanted to take some press shots of us all holding electrical plugs while standing on top of a cop car, if I remember correctly, but we obviously never made that happen.

An otherwise smart group of talentless guitar playing college kids came up with this name, as in "Dude, print up fliers that say Free Pizza and Wings 9pm @ Fraziers! We'll pack the place!" Fortunately we, errr they, sobered up before going through with it.

Gag school has members of the seminal bmore/dc band reptile house. Do you know who they are? You should. Members went on to be in lungfish and Samhain. They have a retrospective coming out on dischord. Their name reminds me of bands like big black and rapeman. So does their sound. If you don't know who any of these bands are you shouldn't be writing about music. Just sayin.

ADM IV, I remember actually seeing a band named Free Beer in the early 80s Bay Area punk scene. A buncha East Bay teenagers who were mediocre musicians, but had some energy and a name that got them onto fliers.'

Many years ago when I was Sam Sessa's age, I did the club and concert listings for the Sun's "Maryland Live" section. Every week I'd pick a "band of the week" based soley on the band's name. My favorites -- Sheep on Acid, Fred Wears a Dress and Car full of Bobs, which then I believe changed its name to No Bobs Here after one of the band members left.

thank's for the Shout out to "Fred Wears A Dress" , I played in that band and came up with the name watching the Flintstones one night after drinking a few sixs of 'Boh. I looked at our lead singer and said, " You know, Fred Wears a Dress" and that was that...Up until then we were going to name the band "Nude Chicks and Free Beer"...Just Sayin'

MR Nacho -- I have actually seen Fred Wears a Dress at Max's back when there were bands there (Geez, I'm dating myself.) Courtney -- I swore it was Sheep on Acid, but maybe it was Sheep on drugs. Maybe I was the one on acid. It was the early 1990s. :)

So many "bad" names like Throbbing Gristle, An*l C*nt, etc. are just distasteful. The real horrors are band names like Suddenly, Tammy! or Absolutely Boxspring (yes, these are real bands). Putting two random words together as a band name was a '90s thing I guess. The band listings for the club called the Bank back then would usually offer some real stinkers. Ekoostik Hookah anyone?

@ WiseLisa and anyone else who has witnessed the Fred Wears a Dress Live Show Debaucle; We appoligise for the nudity and crazy onstage antics from our lead singer. Jeff later moved on to front the now defunct local booze fueled rock band, The Twin Six.

The versatility of the English language promises us boundless possibilities w/ respect to band names; the best are yet to come. I happened to witness the show in question, and it was vastly more entertaining than anything to be had in the smug, complacent, and generally illiterate blogoshere.

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About Erik Maza

Erik Maza is a features reporter at the Baltimore Sun. He writes for several sections of the Sun paper and contributes weekly columns on music and nightlife. He also writes and edits the Midnight Sun blog. He often covers entertainment, business, and the business of entertainment. Occasionally, he writes about Four Loko, The Block, the liquor board, and those who practice "simulated sex with a potted palm tree." Before The Sun, he was a reporter at the Miami New Times. He's also written for Miami magazine, the Orlando Sentinel, the Sarasota Herald Tribune and the Gainesville Sun. Got tips? Gripes? Pitches? He's reachable at erik.maza@baltsun.com. Click here to keep up with the dumb music he's listening to.

Midnight Sun covers Baltimore music, live entertainment, and nightlife news. On the blog, you'll find, among other things, concert announcements, breaking news, bars closings and openings, up-to-date coverage of crime in nightlife, new music, round-the-clock coverage of Virgin Mobile FreeFest, handy guides on bars staying open past 2 a.m. on New Year's Eve and those that carry Natty Boh on draft. Recurring features include seven-day nightlife guides, Concert News, guest reviews of bars and concerts, Wednesday Corkboard, and photo galleries, as well as reader-submitted photos. Thanks for reading.